1. (Field of the Invention)
The present invention generally relates to improvement of a storage construction in which a spare tire of a motor vehicle is stored in a tire storage portion disposed under a floor panel of the motor vehicle and more particularly, to countermeasures for preventing defective storage, accidental detachment, etc. of the spare tire.
2. (Description of the Prior Art)
A motor vehicle in which a spare tire is stored is known from, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 62-268779 (1987). In this known motor vehicle, its passenger initially gets out of the motor vehicle and engages in a hub hole of the spare tire a hanger provided at a distal end of a hoisting cable. In this state, the passenger inserts an operating handle into an insertion portion of a hoist and rotates the operating handle so as to actuate the hoist such that the hoisting cable is wound. As a result, the spare tire is lifted to a lower portion of a vehicle body so as to be stored in an oblique attitude.
On the other hand, an arrangement has been proposed in which a tire storage portion for storing a spare tire is provided between wheels and under a floor panel of a motor vehicle in order to effectively use space of the motor vehicle.
Meanwhile, in case the conventional hoist having the hoisting cable in the above mentioned publication is employed in the above known arrangement, it is difficult to operate the operating handle because the tire storage portion is provided under the floor panel. Therefore, it is desirable that the operating handle can be operated in a cabin. In order to store the spare tire in the tire storage portion in this case, the passenger initially gets out of the motor vehicle and engages in the hub hole of the spare tire the hanger provided at the distal end of the hoisting cable. Then, the passenger returns to the cabin and rotates the operating handle. However, at this time, such a phenomenon may happen that the spare tire is placed on the ground without being stored in the tire storage portion due to the passenger's failure to operate the operating handle. If the passenger starts running of the motor vehicle without noticing this dangerous state, such a serious problem arises that the motor vehicle runs while dragging the spare tire on the ground.
Generally, a temporary tire should be stored in the tire storage portion as the spare tire. Therefore, a standard tire having a width larger than that of the temporary tire should not be stored in the tire storage portion as the spare tire. Nevertheless, if the standard tire is erroneously stored in the tire storage portion as the spare tire, such a risk is incurred that the stored standard tire comes quite close to the ground due to its larger width than that of the temporary tire. Meanwhile, if an outside and an inside of the temporary tire to be stored in the tire storage portion as the spare tire are inadvertently oriented reversely, disposition of the spare tire in the tire storage portion is different from that of the properly stored spare tire and thus, storage of the spare tire becomes unstable.
Moreover, in the above known arrangement in which the spare tire is hung from the tire storage portion provided under the floor panel of the motor vehicle, it is necessary to take a countermeasure for preventing accidental detachment of the spare tire from the tire storage portion.